I’m sad this happens. I have had similar and it’s hard.
It seems like orgs and individuals have different incentives here—orgs want the most applicants possible, individuals want to get jobs.
I have been asked to apply for 1 − 3 jobs that seemed wildly beyond my qualification then failed at the first hurdle without any feedback. This was quite frustrating, but I guess I understand why it happens.
I like that work trials are paid well
If we believe the best person for a job might be 5-10x better than the next best, then perhaps it’s worth really trying to get that marginal person.
I wish orgs would publish the number of applicants they have and give more feedback about where one is in regard to the level required to proceed. Giving clear feedback is another kind of pay.
I feel annoyed when there isn’t honesty that, for some, EA can be kind of drudgery. I don’t think we should expect doing good to be all sunshine and I have never managed to find EA jobs that were a good fit (10s of applications, I guess?) and I guess I shouldn’t expect to, but equally that is an expectation that can be set—some people will find jobs easily, some won’t, we don’t all have skills that easily map to skills that EA orgs want.
EA orgs aren’t on average great forecasters about the future. Forecasting is really hard. Perhaps they are better than the median person about what skills to get into (AI has seemed like a big win in terms of ways to have impact) but getting any well-paid non-evil job (especially in AI) will likely create skills that are valuable. Down the line this can hopefully be pushed into doing good if now isn’t such an easy time for that (and some of the money can too!), so it’s worth considering taking lucrative non-evil jobs now and then having more options down the line. I would take this advice weakly.
I tend to think that one falls in love very hard the first time and EA is a little like that. People have never had a community before and it feels great to be part of something. Many want to do exactly the right thing. The orgs are wise, the leaders hyper-competent. But to me, many EA orgs and leaders seem pretty good, but not superhuman, focused on neglected topics. This is worth bearing in mind while applying. I weakly think that building my own skills is probably going to do more good than working at just the right place or for just the right person. There are a small number of cases where a specific org or person or project seems 10x better than everything else and in that case, I push myself to go for it, but that seems different to applying for “EA jobs” in general.
It does seem like orgs want to simply maximise the number of applicants. I’m putting forward that this isn’t cost-effective.
I think there should be a soft rule that recommending someone to apply = shortlisting them to the interview/work test stage automatically. There should be some benefit to being encouraged to apply.
I don’t believe that the 5–10x differential holds at all, especially not for soft skills like comms, fundraising, and programs. If it did, I would agree with you. But how do you quantify what 5–10x looks like for a marketing manager, for example, ahead of time? What if the real value difference is actually a fraction of 1%, and you’ve gone and spent an extra 20k on a hiring round completely unnecessarily, when the number two candidate was already known to you?
Pay is pay, but yes, I strongly agree that applicant numbers, and then numbers at each stage, should be available on request. I often don’t get a reply when I ask about this, unfortunately.
Whether or not you should expect success depends on all sorts of things. If you’re brand new to the movement and applying for your first role, expectations should be low. However, this is a different point to the main thrust of my post, which is: why are orgs running expensive hiring rounds when the talent is already queuing up, out the door, into the stratosphere? I don’t think that’s cost-effective, but I want to know what others think on that question.
To add some thoughts/anecdotes:
I’m sad this happens. I have had similar and it’s hard.
It seems like orgs and individuals have different incentives here—orgs want the most applicants possible, individuals want to get jobs.
I have been asked to apply for 1 − 3 jobs that seemed wildly beyond my qualification then failed at the first hurdle without any feedback. This was quite frustrating, but I guess I understand why it happens.
I like that work trials are paid well
If we believe the best person for a job might be 5-10x better than the next best, then perhaps it’s worth really trying to get that marginal person.
I wish orgs would publish the number of applicants they have and give more feedback about where one is in regard to the level required to proceed. Giving clear feedback is another kind of pay.
I feel annoyed when there isn’t honesty that, for some, EA can be kind of drudgery. I don’t think we should expect doing good to be all sunshine and I have never managed to find EA jobs that were a good fit (10s of applications, I guess?) and I guess I shouldn’t expect to, but equally that is an expectation that can be set—some people will find jobs easily, some won’t, we don’t all have skills that easily map to skills that EA orgs want.
EA orgs aren’t on average great forecasters about the future. Forecasting is really hard. Perhaps they are better than the median person about what skills to get into (AI has seemed like a big win in terms of ways to have impact) but getting any well-paid non-evil job (especially in AI) will likely create skills that are valuable. Down the line this can hopefully be pushed into doing good if now isn’t such an easy time for that (and some of the money can too!), so it’s worth considering taking lucrative non-evil jobs now and then having more options down the line. I would take this advice weakly.
I tend to think that one falls in love very hard the first time and EA is a little like that. People have never had a community before and it feels great to be part of something. Many want to do exactly the right thing. The orgs are wise, the leaders hyper-competent. But to me, many EA orgs and leaders seem pretty good, but not superhuman, focused on neglected topics. This is worth bearing in mind while applying. I weakly think that building my own skills is probably going to do more good than working at just the right place or for just the right person. There are a small number of cases where a specific org or person or project seems 10x better than everything else and in that case, I push myself to go for it, but that seems different to applying for “EA jobs” in general.
Hey, thanks for writing!
It does seem like orgs want to simply maximise the number of applicants. I’m putting forward that this isn’t cost-effective.
I think there should be a soft rule that recommending someone to apply = shortlisting them to the interview/work test stage automatically. There should be some benefit to being encouraged to apply.
I don’t believe that the 5–10x differential holds at all, especially not for soft skills like comms, fundraising, and programs. If it did, I would agree with you. But how do you quantify what 5–10x looks like for a marketing manager, for example, ahead of time? What if the real value difference is actually a fraction of 1%, and you’ve gone and spent an extra 20k on a hiring round completely unnecessarily, when the number two candidate was already known to you?
Pay is pay, but yes, I strongly agree that applicant numbers, and then numbers at each stage, should be available on request. I often don’t get a reply when I ask about this, unfortunately.
Whether or not you should expect success depends on all sorts of things. If you’re brand new to the movement and applying for your first role, expectations should be low. However, this is a different point to the main thrust of my post, which is: why are orgs running expensive hiring rounds when the talent is already queuing up, out the door, into the stratosphere? I don’t think that’s cost-effective, but I want to know what others think on that question.